February 28, 2016

INSOMNIA, EXPLOSIVES & AMPUTATION

I’ve had problems sleeping all my life, but it had grown much worse lately, so my doctor prescribed sleeping pills and told me to call him in a week to let him know how I was feeling.

After a week, I called to tell him that the pills weren’t working.

He was busy.

I left my number.

He never called back.

This game of telephone tag, in which I was the sole participant, went on for 10 days.

Depression set in.I didn’t need this kind of rejection, on top of being exhausted.

When he finally did call, I told him that I was disappointed in the sleeping pills, and now I was not only wide awake at night, but wide awake and depressed.

He prescribed a stronger sleeping pill and put me on Prozac.

I drove to my neighborhood pharmacy to pick up the $11 worth of sleeping pills and the Prozac.Before handing them to me, the pharmacist said, “You’re not going to be happy about this.”

“So what?” I replied.“I’m not happy about anything.I’m depressed.”

He shrugged and handed me the prescriptions.The Prozac had a price tag of $162.00!For 30 pills!If I was depressed when I walked in, I was sure to be suicidal when I walked out.What are these drug companies thinking?They create a pill to effectively treat depression, and then make it unaffordable.I had no idea that the Marquis de Sade was alive and well and running Dista Pharmaceuticals these days.

Now I’m more depressed than ever, and I can’t sleep for worrying about how I’m going to pay for this stuff each month.

I concluded that if I ever wanted another wink of sleep, I needed to get away from all my stress for a while.

Having no money, I decided to stow away on an ocean liner.

It was a Carnival Cruise.

Three days into the voyage, somebody lit a match and the ship exploded.

We were all picked up eventually, but as a result of the shark feeding frenzy, I am now known as, “Stumpy.”

Perhaps a good book would take my mind off my plight.Once released from intensive care—on the promise that I would donate blood until my debt was paid, which I reckon will be some twenty-five years after my death; I made my way to the library—where, after an hour of browsing, The Collected Works of William Shatner fell from a top shelf and hit me on the head.

I tottered back home to wash the stink out of my hair, having neglected to take a book with me.

Once clean and dry, I flipped on the television.

A “Star Trek” marathon.

Screaming and irrational, I threw a boxed set of “Battlestar Galactica” through the screen, tripped, dislocated my shoulder, and broke my nose.The sparks from the ruined TV jumped to the blood and delivered a shock that turned my finger and toe nails black and stood my hair on end.Once I got up and unplugged the thing, all my hair fell out.

I’m a shadow of my former self.Now I’m not only sleepless and depressed, but also mortally boat and ocean phobic, short, terrified of William Shatner, and bald, with a nose like Sylvester Stallone.

There was only one thing left to do.Get rid of whoever was responsible for all this.I had little left to lose . . . literally . . . and a jail term could only improve the wreckage of my life.I planned my revenge carefully.

On the first moonless night, I made my way to my enemy and planted the necessary charges.Moving back a safe distance, I picked up the detonator and pushed the plunger.

“Die, Dista Pharmaceuticals!Die! Moowhahahahahahaha!”

I was, of course, apprehended. Can’t run too well, these days.

This afternoon, there is a parade in my honor, after which I will be released and driven to a brand new, donated, furnished home in the suburbs, provided with a car and chauffeur, and given a check for five million dollars. Carson 1, Dista Pharmaceuticals 0. Game over.